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Understanding autism
Understanding autism

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2.3 Adult support in international perspective

As outlined in earlier weeks, services for autistic children in many lower and middle income countries (LMICs) are very sparse. The gap is even greater for adults, as illustrated by a recent interview study of South African professionals and parents (Meiring et al., 2016). In some ways the fears about transition expressed by South African parents mirror those of parents like Melanie, quoted earlier. But the situation is more extreme, as these quotes from parents illustrate:

‘It’s a very, very scary thought, it’s a very sad situation, to be very honest, there is nobody, after us [parents] there is really nobody …’

‘No I don’t know of any [transition arrangements] … I have ‘googled’, I have looked, it’s only overseas where I see there is so much support systems …’

(Meiring et al., 2016)